y
years, and he finds some fault with our ways--or, at least, he asks for
some explanation about them.'

'Yes, quite so. I am afraid I have forgotten the point on which Mr.
Ericson desired to get information.' And Rivers smiled a bland smile
without looking at Ericson. 'May I trouble you, Lord Courtreeve, for the
cigarettes?'

'It was not merely a point, but a whole cresset of points--a cluster of
points,' Ericson said, 'on every one of which I wished to have a tip of
light. Is English social life to be judged of by the conversation and
the canons of opinion which we find received in London society?'

'Certainly not,' Sir Rupert explained.

'Heaven forbid!' Lord Courtreeve added fervently.

'I don't quite understand,' said Soame Rivers.

'Well,' the Dictator explained, 'what I mean is this. I find little or
nothing prevailing in London society but cheap cynicism--the very
cheapest cynicism--cynicism at a farthing a yard or thereabouts. We all
admire healthy cynicism--cynicism with a great reforming and purifying
purpose--the cynicism that is like a corrosive acid to an evil system;
but this West End London sham cynicism--what does that mean?'

'I don't quite know what you mean,' Soame Rivers said.

'I mean this, wherever you go in London society--at all events, wherever
I go--I notice a peculiarity that I think did not exist, at all events
to such an extent, in my younger days. Everything is taken with easy
ridicule. A divorce case is a joke. Marriage is a joke. Love is a joke.
Patriotism is a joke. Everybody is assumed, as a matter of course, to
have a selfish motive in everything. Is this the real feeling of London
society, or is it only a fashion, a sham, a grimace?'

'I think it is a very natural feeling,' Soame Rivers replied, with the
greatest promptitude.

'And represents the true feeling of what are called the better classes
of London?'

'Why, certainly.'

'I think the thing is detestable, anyhow,' Lord Courtreeve interposed,
'and I am quite sure it does not represent the tone of English society.'

'So am I,' Sir Rupert added.

'But you must admit that it is the tone which does prevail,' the
Dictator said pressingly, for he wanted very much to study this question
down to its roots.

'I am afraid it is the prevailing social tone of London--I mean the West
End,' Sir Rupert admitted reluctantly. 'But you know what a fashion
there is in these things, as well as in others. The fashion in a woman's